Techs & Trends
Carriers and phones
I'm pretty new to all this, so please forgive my ignorance, I'm working on it!
Phones listed here on PhoneScoop have this "Offered By" section on their "Specifications and Features page.
Is this the list of carriers that will sell you the phone directly (or will sometimes throw it in with a phone service deal)?
Or is the full list of every major carrier that would let you use the phone?
For example, the Nokia 6600 is a GSM phone.
It lists only T-Mobile in it's "Offered By" section.
https://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=338 »
Does this mean that T-Mobile is the only major carrier to sell this phone?
Or does it mean that T-Mobile is the only carrier that this phone will work with?
I know that Cingular has a GSM network, and ...
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Phones listed here on PhoneScoop have this "Offered By" section on their "Specifications and Features page.
Is this the list of carriers that will sell you the phone directly (or will sometimes throw it in with a phone service deal)?
Or is the full list of every major carrier that would let you use the phone?
For example, the Nokia 6600 is a GSM phone.
It lists only T-Mobile in it's "Offered By" section.
https://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=338 »
Does this mean that T-Mobile is the only major carrier to sell this phone?
Or does it mean that T-Mobile is the only carrier that this phone will work with?
I know that Cingular has a GSM network, and ...
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"Offered by" means... offered by. 😉 It's the carriers that offer the phone for sale directly.
Compatible is something else. It's not as simple as GSM vs. CDMA.
There are also different frequency bands. T-Mobile only uses the 1900 band (PCS), and that's the only U.S. band the Nokia 6600 supports.
But Cingular uses both the 800/850 band and 1900. It varies by region, but it's safe to say that in many states you would get poor coverage with the 6600 on Cingular, and in some states you would get no coverage at all. You really want a phone with both bands if you have Cingular, and that's not the 6600.
(The 6620 does have both bands, though, plus some other upgrades, and it is offered by Cingular.)
Then there's locking... some ...
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Compatible is something else. It's not as simple as GSM vs. CDMA.
There are also different frequency bands. T-Mobile only uses the 1900 band (PCS), and that's the only U.S. band the Nokia 6600 supports.
But Cingular uses both the 800/850 band and 1900. It varies by region, but it's safe to say that in many states you would get poor coverage with the 6600 on Cingular, and in some states you would get no coverage at all. You really want a phone with both bands if you have Cingular, and that's not the 6600.
(The 6620 does have both bands, though, plus some other upgrades, and it is offered by Cingular.)
Then there's locking... some ...
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Thanks for the clarification Rich!
With GSM carriers, buy a GSM phone, make sure you the frequencies you need (with the huge variety of phones out there, I think I'd have a hard time justifying buying any phone that didn't support every frequency out there).
Then it's just deal with the carrier to get the Sim card situated.
Switching carriers just involves the usual phone cards and dealing w/ the Sim card again.
CDMA phones are pretty much the same way, except there's no Sim card and it's hard to switch carriers with the phone?
Yuck!
Is it a usually a problem to buy a brand new CDMA phone from where-ever and have it setup to use your carrier?
Or with CDMA phones do they just plain make it hard for you to get a phone from anywher...
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With GSM carriers, buy a GSM phone, make sure you the frequencies you need (with the huge variety of phones out there, I think I'd have a hard time justifying buying any phone that didn't support every frequency out there).
Then it's just deal with the carrier to get the Sim card situated.
Switching carriers just involves the usual phone cards and dealing w/ the Sim card again.
CDMA phones are pretty much the same way, except there's no Sim card and it's hard to switch carriers with the phone?
Yuck!
Is it a usually a problem to buy a brand new CDMA phone from where-ever and have it setup to use your carrier?
Or with CDMA phones do they just plain make it hard for you to get a phone from anywher...
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Operaman said:
...Or with CDMA phones do they just plain make it hard for you to get a phone from anywhere other than from the carrier directly?
Right - they're just not sold that way. All CDMA phones are programmed specifically for that carrier, and sold by that carrier only.
It's always been that way, but in a way it's actually gotten worse in the last few years. That's because each major CDMA carrier has chosen different data-related technologies. Sprint and Verizon use totally different and incompatible technologies for things like photos, videos, games, and PTT (walkie-talkie). So even if you did get a Sprint phone to work on Verizon, none of those features could ever work, because they're as differe...
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Oh, gag.
You mean all these "send photos to your friend's phone" things are all just in-network only for CDMA phones?
And it's better on the GSM end?
Someone actually asked me last week if I could get pictures on my phone (all I got's a plain old land line anyway).
The guy who asked me is quite a techie and I know he's a GSM proponent.
You mean all these "send photos to your friend's phone" things are all just in-network only for CDMA phones?
And it's better on the GSM end?
Someone actually asked me last week if I could get pictures on my phone (all I got's a plain old land line anyway).
The guy who asked me is quite a techie and I know he's a GSM proponent.
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Operaman said:
Oh, gag.
You mean all these "send photos to your friend's phone" things are all just in-network only for CDMA phones?
Well, yes - at the moment. But we might be talking about two different things...
First, at the moment, if you have a Sprint camera phone, you can only send photo messages to other Sprint phones. But that will change. All the carriers are working on linking their systems so you can send photos from any camera phone to any other photo-capable phone.
The other issue, which is what I was talking about originally, is whether a Sprint camera phone would be able to send photos when used on the Verizon network with a Verizon account. (Regardless of the recipient.) That would not...
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Ah, I see the difference in the 2 different photo-sending scenarios. Thanks.
I wonder if anyone's written a "BREW for Java" implementation yet? ;-)
I wonder if anyone's written a "BREW for Java" implementation yet? ;-)
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Operaman said:
I wonder if anyone's written a "BREW for Java" implementation yet? ;-)
No, but they have done the opposite. There is a Java engine that can run on top of BREW. But a carrier would have to decide to offer it, and I don't know off-hand of any carriers that have done that.
BREW on top of Java would be tricky, because BREW does more than Java. Java is just a platform for running little software apps. BREW does that, too, but it also includes the system for downloading them, the filesystem, and it also manages things like ringtones and wallpaper.
So BREW is much more integrated into the phone than Java. Certainly you couldn't do a full BREW implementation on top of Java. Perhaps you could do ...
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cdma vs gsm .... Please enlighten
me.. why wouuld cdma be preferable to
cdma... cdma uses towers. Gsm uses
satelite and it would seem global
communication not dependent on a
tower.. Why would gsm not be a 3g choice? Thanks
me.. why wouuld cdma be preferable to
cdma... cdma uses towers. Gsm uses
satelite and it would seem global
communication not dependent on a
tower.. Why would gsm not be a 3g choice? Thanks
...
😕
Erm... no. GSM uses towers just like CDMA. They're very similar that way.
Neither technology uses satellites at all. Satellite phones like Globalstar and Iridium are huge, heavy, and very expensive to buy and use. Whole different thing. The only people that use satellite phones are people like reporters in Iraq and explorers in the Arctic. In civilization, everything is tower-based.
Erm... no. GSM uses towers just like CDMA. They're very similar that way.
Neither technology uses satellites at all. Satellite phones like Globalstar and Iridium are huge, heavy, and very expensive to buy and use. Whole different thing. The only people that use satellite phones are people like reporters in Iraq and explorers in the Arctic. In civilization, everything is tower-based.
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